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| Golden grass jutting Toward the blue sky Leaves sway A windy ballet. Red flame dance Black clouds billow Burning cane time. |
By Laureen Kwock The first time I tasted sugar cane was in my grandmother’s kitchen in Keanae in a house that always smelled of the kung syu pyung cakes she baked every morning. I was five years old and had been dispatched along with my sisters to Maui to spend summer with our Maui Gramma. My sisters were accustomed to spending their vacations playing with cousins and running down to explore the taro patch, but I was the baby in the family and missing my mom. Seated at Gramma’s wooden table, I stared at the dish in front of me. Pared down to a six inch chunk, the sugar cane had come straight from the ice box and looked stringy and hard, but oh how it tasted! Cold. Sweet. Delicious. I chewed and sucked every drop of juice that trickled down my throat that warm afternoon. Suddenly life was good. Past… Sugar is still a sweet fuel for the human body. During its 100+ years sugar fueled Maui’s growth from the first Polynesians who stepped ashore with the plant to the contract laborers who came from far off countries to work in the fields. Challenges abounded from water irrigation to marketplace pricing. By the 1950s consolidation and competition had dropped the number of plantations to around 30 across all the islands. Today that number has dwindled to two, the Gay and Robinson’s Olokele Mill on Kauai and the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company (HC&S) Pu’unene Mill on Maui. Tourism has supplanted agriculture as Hawaii’s leading industry. Visitors can get a taste of plantation life over at the Alexander and Baldwin Sugar Museum in Pu’unene. The twenty year old museum is housed in a plantation style home similar to those workers lived in years ago. One gallery includes a Family Treasures mini-exhibit. Present… Treasures of another kind can be found at Carmen and Company, a gallery in the Old Pa’ia Train Depot. The gallery run by owner Carmen Pirics features Viennese ceramics, jewelry and Carmen’s own beadwork. Located across from the site of the old Pa’ia Mill that’s been dismantled, the train depot rumbles with new life from retailers such as Carmen. Rambutan Traders offers vintage and modern furnishings for the home (reclaimed teak is one of their specialties). For the outdoor enthusiast, Maui Mt. Cruisers offers bike tours down Haleakala. And there’s room for more. Future… Remnants of sugar’s past are entwined with the present. What of its future? HC&S’s General Manager, Stephen Holaday, sees a brighter future in specialty sugars. “Looking into our crystal ball, we see increasing amounts of our crop being manufactured as specialty sugars, and the amount of our crop being sold as commodity raw sugar decreasing over time.” For a closer look at these specialty sugars visit www.mauibrand.com. And as for those acres of cane lands? It appears they’ll keep on dancing for many years to come. |
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Index
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Aloha Cowboy
Breathing Lessons
Flatbread
Healers
Maui Humane Society
Ram Dass
Restaurant Reviews
Sugar Sugar
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The Guardian Magazine 2008-2009